Politics Blog

Foreign al Qaeda in Iraq:

It is estimated that there are only about 750 to 1,000 al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Foreign al Qaeda in Germany:

“There are 300 to 500 people who are suspected to be part of al Qaeda cells in Germany,” said Col. Andrew Pratt (Ret.) of the George Marshall Center in Germany.

And I thought they were all being attracted to Iraq like it was fly paper?

UPDATE: (9:00 PM) Unfortunately there are many people that have no idea the difference between the group “al Qaeda in Iraq” and simply “al Qaeda” in Iraq. Oh well, it reminds me of Democrats that do not know the difference between Sunni and Shia or when Hannity does “man on the street” and no one can name the Vice President. “Al Qaeda in Iraq” has as much to do with “al Qaeda” in Iraq as the National Rifle Association has to do with the National Republican Committee. They both start with “National” and the second word starts with “R.”

Giuliani had the option of simply not discussing life issues, or when asked about them simply answered that he would nominate Judges in the mold of Scalia/Thomas. The following immediately came into my mind when he decided to “come out” on the issue:

“It’s the moment of truth for conservatives,” says one of the Christian conservative activists. “Either social conservatives rally to stop a Giuliani nomination and victory for him in November 2008 or our issues – abortion, same-sex marriage, the preservation of the family – are permanently off the Republican Party agenda.”

I was desperately trying to be for him, until I became against him.

A Guiliani nomination means the National GOP will mirror the NJ GOP.
(No offense to fellow blogger AJ Spraxx who is doing his absolute damn best in NJ.)

There was a lot of genuflecting over the recent French elections, but did many in America simply base their conclusions on labels and not actual programs? One of the bloggers at Wizbang discovered the following:

French presidential front-runner Nicolas Sarkozy said that if elected he would contemplate pulling France’s troops out of Afghanistan.

Outlining his stance on key foreign policy issues yesterday, he also denounced the United States’ refusal to cap carbon emissions and proposed taxing imports from China because it too has refused to limit greenhouse gases.

Just because you hear someone outside the United States described as politically right or conservative do not expect them to be Conservative “American Style.”

On May 4, 2007, a key readiness report was released by the Office of the Surgeon General. It had many key findings andrecommendations.

General Petraeus reacted to the report:

The top U.S. commander in Iraq admonished his troops regarding the results of an Army survey that found that many U.S military personnel there are willing to tolerate some torture of suspects and unwilling to report abuse by comrades.

“This fight depends on securing the population, which must understand that we – not our enemies – occupy the moral high ground,” Army Gen. David H. Petraeus wrote in an open letter dated May 10 and posted on a military Web site.

Even though he was extremely concerned about the findings he did nothing about the recommendations but he did send a letter to the troops.

General Petraeus is attempting to win the hearts and minds of the Iraq people which is a difficult task to accomplish. If that is ones goal, he is expressing the correct concern in his letter.

A letter however, will not cause the behavior that he would like to change to change, the Surgeon General knows this and had recommendations specified to meet this.

I know that there is a segment of the population that is saying we have to “win in Iraq.” Other than I do not know what “win in Iraq’ is because we already won, I do understand the emotion of wanting to “win.” You want to “win against the IRS when you do your taxes.” You want “the team to win.” You want to “win the ebay bid.”

If you want to “win” in Iraq you have to ensure that American Soldiers/Marines are in a position to “win.” Only fresh and rested troops can accomplish the difficult task of winning hearts and minds in Iraq.

This man:

In his testimony, Mr. Wolfowitz ticked off several reasons why he believed a much smaller coalition peacekeeping force than General Shinseki envisioned would be sufficient to police and rebuild postwar Iraq. He said there was no history of ethnic strife in Iraq, as there was in Bosnia or Kosovo. He said Iraqi civilians would welcome an American-led liberation force that “stayed as long as necessary but left as soon as possible,” but would oppose a long-term occupation force. And he said that nations that oppose war with Iraq would likely sign up to help rebuild it. “I would expect that even countries like France will have a strong interest in assisting Iraq in reconstruction,” Mr. Wolfowitz said. He added that many Iraqi expatriates would likely return home to help.

May finally get the door:

A WORLD Bank panel today accused bank president Paul Wolfowitz of breaking bank rules in arranging a hefty compensation package for his girlfriend. The bank’s executive board will decide tomorrow if Mr Wolfowitz can continue as president.
Mr Wolfowitz’s actions have caused a “crisis in the leadership” at the institution, according to a report released today.

The special panel recommended that the full 24-member board determine tomorrow whether Mr Wolfowitz “will be able to provide the leadership” to ensure that the bank achieve its mission of fighting poverty around the world.

I hope the door hits him on the way out.

There is an old axim that you should never start a project that you can not finish. The American People do not have the patience for this:

Insurgencies, such as the one the U.S. is fighting in Iraq, last an average of more than 10 years, according to a database commissioned by the Pentagon.

For the U.S., the good news is that rebels lose more often than they win. Chances for stopping an insurgency improve after 10 years.

Stopping the violence in Iraq will take years, Pentagon leaders have said. However, there have been few efforts to analyze and quantify insurgencies in order to draw conclusions about Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The violence in Iraq is going to go on a minimum for at least three or four more years and in reality another five-plus years,” said Christopher Lawrence, director of The Dupuy Institute, which is conducting the study.

I would suspect this would be a good addition to the Weinberger Doctrine.

Is Tom Tancredo a liberal, a Democrat a “cut and runner?”

At the forum, Tancredo also disagreed with President Bush’s decision to send thousands of additional troops into Iraq earlier this year.

“We should disengage,” he said “We have to take American troops out of the target, the military target and political target. There is absolutely a role to play for the United States - to make sure al-Qaida does not create a source for terrorist activity. We have to make sure that we do control the situation, but I do believe we need to disengage.”

Michael Lind urges Republicans to return to the “Republican wayof war” based on traditional Conservative principles:

Whether a Democrat or a Republican is elected in 2008, the time is ripe for a reassertion of the traditional Republican way of war in America. By that I mean the approach to foreign policy of pre-neo-conservative Republicans such as Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Colin Powell an approach that US President George W. Bush and the neo-conservatives have rejected in favour of a disastrous strategy inspired by cold war Democrats.

Neo-conservatives are far more likely to praise Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy than to quote Eisenhower or Nixon, and with good reason. Most are ex-Democrats, and their foreign policy tradition is based in the “cold war liberalism” of Truman, Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. As big-government liberals, cold war Democrats assumed that the US economy could afford both welfare and warfare. They favoured outspending the Soviet bloc at all levels.

What is the Republican way of war?

Call it the Eisenhower-Nixon-Reagan-Powell doctrine a capital-intensive strategy for the traditional American party of capital. The US will rely on superior technology, rather than attempt to match the military manpower of its enemies (Eisenhower). The US will provide alliesand clients with arms, intelligence and aid, but expect them to fight their own battles (Nixon). The US will support freedom fighters, but will not send its own soldiers to liberate them from their oppressors (Reagan). Only when all else fails will the US send its own troops (Powell).

What about President Bush and his plans, he is a Republican!

Nothing could be further from the neo-conservative Bush doctrine. Neo-conservatives reject the logic of the Eisenhower doctrine, arguing that the US should permanently fund the military at cold war levels. They reject the spirit of the Nixon doctrine, arguing that the US in the name of “reassurance” should volunteer to protect allies such as Japan against their enemies such as North Korea. While praising Reagan, the neocons reject his doctrine, holding instead that the US should liberate oppressed nations by means of “regime change” instead of by his less costly alternative of arming indigenous “freedom fighters". And they reject the Powell doctrine, arguing that it raises the bar for US military intervention too high.

Some good news for a change,

By a decisive margin,voters in this north Dallas suburb approved an ordinance Saturday prohibiting landlords from renting apartments to most illegal immigrants.

With all votes counted, the bitterly contested ordinance passed by 67 percent of the vote.

“We are fed up with the federal government’s inaction on immigration,” said City Councilman Tim O’Hare, who sponsored the rental ban. “We are not going to wait. We are going to take care of it.”

Bill Brewer, a Dallas lawyer who has filed two lawsuits against the rental measure and financed much of the campaign against it, said he would ask for a court to enjoin enforcement “very soon.”

That’s right Mr. Brewer, “will of the people” and such is meaningless. Sadly, I’m confident he’ll do all too well in court.

Oh, this is just too rich. Democrats worried about terrorism? Surely you jest. The “war” Democrats are willing to fight is political:

Ever since the Vietnam era, Democrats have struggled to overcome a notion the party is not just antiwar but antimilitary.

Uh, it’s not a “notion” that Democrats and their constituents are antimilitary. It’s a fact. Especially when elected Democrats happily go on record saying members of the military are stupid and/or are merceniares.

The article continues,

From antiwar riots at the Democratic convention in Chicago to the failed rescue of U.S. hostages in Iran to pictures of presidential hopeful Michael S. Dukakis in a tank, the party often managed to project hostility or ineptitude toward the armed forces — an image Republicans were happy to exploit.

That began to change about 1992, after the first U.S. invasion of Iraq. Although Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton spent much of his Democratic presidential campaign batting down charges that he dodged the Vietnam draft, he didn’t shrink from using patriotic and pro-military symbolism in his campaign. He selected Tennessee Sen. Al Gore, a Vietnam veteran, as his running mate, in part because of Gore’s vote in support of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Al Gore is a “Vietnam Veteran” as much as I am. Obviously this article is very sympathetic to the idea that the Democratic party can express an adequate amount of “concern for the troops” in order to convince enough of those dumb rubes to vote for them so they can take back the White House. I’m increasingly concerned it is going to work.